The eco-friendly, intelligent system integrates real-time weather data to save time, money and water

Last week, the 2014 Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas was filled with tech companies showing off their latest and greatest. While many booths featured updates to previously existing products, we stopped by one start-up that caught our eye, as it merged real-time data, environmental consciousness and smart technology in an area that's caused a lot of headaches and eco-guilt: landscape sprinklers.

You won't have to wing it anymore—as an alternative to manual hose spraying or timed sprinklers, the Skydrop controller connects to a cloud service via Wi-Fi to interpret hyperlocal, real-time weather data; it determines when a sufficient amount of water loss has occurred and will then schedule sprinkler times accordingly. By only watering when it is necessary, Skydrop reduces overall water usage. As long as you're hooked up to the internet, watering your landscape or changing settings can be done anywhere—from a mobile device or web browser, or the installed controller at home.

Clark Endrizzi, Skydrop co-founder tells CH, "We started with the belief that great products simplify your life. Most people don’t know how to use their sprinkler controllers and certainly don’t know how much water they need to use for their landscape. From the resulting confusion and overwatering emerged Skydrop, a very simple to use controller with an amazing amount of power." Customers will, no doubt, be happy to cross that chore off the list and spend more time rolling around in the resulting fresh, green grass.

Pre-order the controller (which covers eight zones) for $299; Skydrop is estimated to ship in March 2014.